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Remember the good ol' days when we fully owned and controlled our devices? I want that back!

by han1 5mo ago

TiredOfLife 5mo ago
When was that? When phones used wires?
- lacewing 5mo ago
  In the US, wired phones were often leased from the phone company! If you shop for vintage phones from the 1960s, they will often have a decal to that effect. Examples: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/71gAAeSw1URp8QPF/s-l1600.webp https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/71gAAeSw1URp8QPF/s-l1600.webp https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/tPAAAeSw~RxqBiLR/s-l1600.webp https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/tPAAAeSw~RxqBiLR/s-l1600.webp I think this started to change only in the 1980s and 1990s, thanks to cheaper electronics imported from overseas?
  - oceansweep 5mo ago
    It was because of anti-monopoly legislation, https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/att-breakup-spinoff.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/att-breakup-spin... ; i.e. breaking up 'Ma Bell' into the baby bells, and the current oligopoly we have instead in the modern day. An older picture showing how they were broken up and then re-merged: https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurelings/comments/r24ed0/diagram_of_how_the_baby_bell_breakup_and/#lightbox https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurelings/comments/r24ed0/diagram... or https://legalclarity.org/what-happened-to-the-baby-bells-after-atts-breakup/ https://legalclarity.org/what-happened-to-the-baby-bells-aft...
    - han1 5mo ago
      I had no idea people paid by the minute
  - tomwheeler 5mo ago
    Yeah, when I was a kid you had to go to the AT&T store to get a phone.
- dgellow 5mo ago
  N900 days. Damn I still miss that device :(
- han1 5mo ago
  I wasn't alive in the 90s, so for me it was 2012-2015. Android was pretty open, iOS was easier to jailbreak, and the ecosystem felt a lot "freer" than today where you step outside of Google or Apple's garden and get endless Cloudflare captchas, apps refuse to load due to attestation, and things are designed without privacy in mind.
- seba_dos1 5mo ago
  In 2008 I've got a Neo Freerunner, a few years later a Nokia N900, then a Librem 5. So at least the last 18 years, I guess? We need to work hard for it to keep going though. (well, unless we start to bikeshed on the exact meaning of "fully control")
surgical_fire 5mo ago
I am far from young, but I fail to see the appeal to this prelapsarian age when we controlled our devices. In no uncertain ways, when things come to technogy things are so much better. Linux is awesome nowadays, self hosting is cheap and easy to get into, etc. How exactly are things worse now in regards to controlling your own devices?

Remember the good ol' days when we fully owned and controlled our devices? I want that back!

by han1 5mo ago

Remember the good ol' days when we fully owned and controlled our devices? I want that back!

TiredOfLife 5mo ago

When was that? When phones used wires?

lacewing 5mo ago
In the US, wired phones were often leased from the phone company! If you shop for vintage phones from the 1960s, they will often have a decal to that effect. Examples: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/71gAAeSw1URp8QPF/s-l1600.webp https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/71gAAeSw1URp8QPF/s-l1600.webp https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/tPAAAeSw~RxqBiLR/s-l1600.webp https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/tPAAAeSw~RxqBiLR/s-l1600.webp I think this started to change only in the 1980s and 1990s, thanks to cheaper electronics imported from overseas?
- oceansweep 5mo ago
  It was because of anti-monopoly legislation, https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/att-breakup-spinoff.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/09/att-breakup-spin... ; i.e. breaking up 'Ma Bell' into the baby bells, and the current oligopoly we have instead in the modern day. An older picture showing how they were broken up and then re-merged: https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurelings/comments/r24ed0/diagram_of_how_the_baby_bell_breakup_and/#lightbox https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurelings/comments/r24ed0/diagram... or https://legalclarity.org/what-happened-to-the-baby-bells-after-atts-breakup/ https://legalclarity.org/what-happened-to-the-baby-bells-aft...
  - han1 5mo ago
    I had no idea people paid by the minute
- tomwheeler 5mo ago
  Yeah, when I was a kid you had to go to the AT&T store to get a phone.
dgellow 5mo ago
N900 days. Damn I still miss that device :(
han1 5mo ago
I wasn't alive in the 90s, so for me it was 2012-2015. Android was pretty open, iOS was easier to jailbreak, and the ecosystem felt a lot "freer" than today where you step outside of Google or Apple's garden and get endless Cloudflare captchas, apps refuse to load due to attestation, and things are designed without privacy in mind.
seba_dos1 5mo ago
In 2008 I've got a Neo Freerunner, a few years later a Nokia N900, then a Librem 5. So at least the last 18 years, I guess? We need to work hard for it to keep going though. (well, unless we start to bikeshed on the exact meaning of "fully control")

surgical_fire 5mo ago

I am far from young, but I fail to see the appeal to this prelapsarian age when we controlled our devices. In no uncertain ways, when things come to technogy things are so much better. Linux is awesome nowadays, self hosting is cheap and easy to get into, etc. How exactly are things worse now in regards to controlling your own devices?